"As goes California, so goes the nation," Minister Keith Muhammad declares at the July 11th Town Hall for Justice for Oscar Grant as he discusses the significance of BART cop Johannes Mehserle being the first police officer in California to face murder charges in court. He speaks about the racism shown by Tony Pirone on January 1st as it compares to former L.A. police officer Mark Fuhrman; the unequal delivery of justice between police officers and people of color; and the biggest impending hurdle to justice for Oscar Grant, the change of venue being sought by Mehserle's defense attorney Michael Rains in order to move the trial out of Alameda County to a less racially diverse county that might be more sympathetic to BART police officers' perjury. Also at issue is BART police chief Gary Gee having full knowledge of Tony Pirone's racist language and violent behavior from the very beginning and not holding him or any other officers accountable, as well as DA Tom Orloff having access to the same high-quality video shown during Mehserle's preliminary hearing and not having shown interest in pursuing a case against any of the BART officers for their actions on January 1st nor for their perjury during the hearing.

Cephus "Uncle Bobby" Johnson introduces a recently produced Oscar Grant tribute video before screening it for those in attendance. The family has requested that a copy of the video be shared on Indybay, where it will be posted in the near future, but they wanted Town Hall supporters to be the very first people outside of the family to view it.

Reverend Henry Williams speaks about the upcoming Restitution Reparation March in Washington, D.C. scheduled for August 28th, 29th, and 30th, in order to pressure President Obama and the U.S. Congress to make good on the broken promises of financial amends never delivered to American slaves and their descendants. He compares the reparations paid over the years for crimes committed to Native American, Japanese, and Jewish peoples but never to African Americans for the several hundred year crime of slavery.

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Audio from the video was removed here, and can be noted by the fade out and fade in of the video's intro and ending music. The actual video itself will be posted in full to Indybay at the web address below in the near future.

As the above chart shows, the USA never gave Jews reparations as the USA never perpetrated the Holocaust directly, but indirectly, cooperated with the Nazis when it could get away with it. It did, however, refuse to grant permission to enter to many potential refugees from the Holocaust, including one ship which was turned back and eventually returned to Europe, where many of its passengers perished in the Holocaust. As the chart above also shows, reparations were given to the African-American male victims of the genocidal Tuskegee syphilis experiments. As to reparations today to African-Americans, you are not going anywhere with Kenyan native Barack Obama nor his African-American wife. They are millionaires who have contempt for the African-American workingclass. See O'BS' speech to the NAACP at: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jul2009/pers-j18.shtml

As to giving reparations to African-Americans, we cannot support giving reparations to O'BS and his wife, nor to anyone in the NAACP who supported O'BS' vicious attack on the workingclass; nor to millionaire anti-tenant thug former mayor of San Francisco, Willie Brown; nor to his millionaire friend who announced on CNN on May 17, 2002 that she told Willie Brown to stay off airplanes on 9/11/01, Condolezza Rice; nor to anti-affirmative action campaigner, Ward Connerly; nor to war criminal former Secretary of State Colin Powell; nor to the African-American chair of the Republican Party, Michael Steele, who attacks universal healthcare at: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090720/ap_on_go_ot/us_health_care_overhaul

Thus, the only reasonable position to take is to support socialism, which is reparations for the entire workingclass as all profits are our stolen labor. By the way, only some African-American men received reparations on the Tuskegee issue; not the women who were also victims. See http://www.womensmediacenter.com/ex/Daily_Exclusives2_main.html

It is also clear that all nationalism is reactionary and this reparations cry is a diversion from the primary problem: the capitalist profit motive. If this reactionary Congress, which cannot even pass a single payer healthcare bill, were to somehow come up with a reparations bill for the African-Americans who happen to be poor, that will not solve the problem of racism, police brutality, or the capitalist profit motive which is killing us all, regardless of color. I see Native Americans received some kind of reparations over the years; the poverty among most Native Americans continues to exist so it was an insulting farce. Of course, the US Congress will never provide reparations to workingclass African-Americans as it is of, by and for the capitalist class and only cares about the rich, and the same is true of the current rotten president, O'BS. Stop voting for the Democrat-Republicans. I am glad I voted for Cynthia McKinney, the Green Party candidate for president.

Almost everyone has slave ancestors. Germans and Slavs were taken as slaves by the Romans. So were the British Celts. Berbers in North Africa were, too. From the 16th to the early 19th century, more than 2 million Europeans were enslaved by Muslims, mostly by being captured by Mulsim pirates on the high seas. By the way, that's 1.5 million more Europeans enslaved than Africans brought to what is now the US. Only about 500,000 Africans were brought to what became the US. In contrast, more than 2 million were taken to Jamaica alone, and over 5 million were brought to Brazil.

but this is 21 century america,and the laws in usa are made by white people.my nationality calls for use of sacred plants less harmful than white mans tobacco.but im not allowed religious freedom.also most ijn prison are black even though only 13 per cent of population. guess what,the cort system was rwatyed by whites,typical american ignorance you are,rthis isnt just reparations for blacks ,but reparations for ALL poor people! if you dont want the money ,this black man will take it!!